Single engine ops in a twin engine world

[skyking1976]

I just had my first real life engine failure yesterday. I have to admit, for being a scary situation, I felt that I held my composure very well and handled the emergency excactly like I had been taught several times over and figured it to be no big deal. After the adrenaline wore off later and talking with bobbysamd on the phone, I realized that it was a big deal. I had a engine failure at FL200 in a piston aircraft over the Rockies, declared an emergency, and requested emergency equipment. I was preparing to possibly crash. As skill (and probably luck) would have it I walked away unscathed with no damage to airplane or ego. My only wish is that any future emergency I have (or anyone else) can be handled with such an exceptional outcome as this one.

Breathing a looooooong sigh of relief,
Skyking

P.S. A million thanks to The DEN center controller working 128.37, PUB controllers, and PUB Airport Fire Dept. Let me buy you a cyber-beer.

 

[bobbysamd]

Mixture, props, throttles, flaps up, gear up, identify, verify, etc.

Skyking did call me yesterday. He did a great job. I didn't realize that he was at FL200, though. His story is proof positive that it is not a waste of time to practice flying primarily on one engine during your ME training and that a little procedures discipline pays major dividends.

Congratulations to Skyking and to the MEI who trained him.

 

[jetdriven]

what kind of plane were you flying

 

[skyking1976]

I was flying a PA31-310 Navajo. Nice and old.

 

[Timebuilder]

I have a couple of questions:

1) How did you coax a 310 Navajo up to FL200?? Just a joke.

2) Were you using the factory 02 system?

A friend of mine has one of these for sale, and just had all the questionable stuff fixed by some good a&p's. Send a PM if any of you are interested.

 

[Andy Neill]

What was you single engine ceiling at your weight? PUB's about 4600 isn't it?

 

[Swass]

Nice work on the engine out, hats off to you for keeping a cool head. I myself had an engine failure in a 172sp at 300 AGL, **CENSORED****CENSORED****CENSORED****CENSORED** near put the thing down on the highway. It only had 9 hours on it, fresh delivery. A&P's were looking at the engine a few hours before takeoff, they messed with the fuel injectors.? Everything turned out okay, got the plane restarted and it ran on one or two cylinders, we declared an emergency and landed uneventfully with all the glory of the firetrucks around us. It would've sucked to have landed on the highway, it was rush hour big time!

 

[cjh]

Skyking,

I fly the same model. Congrats on getting down safely!

 

[skyking1976]

Thanks for the congrats, everyone!

To answer questions:

To Timebuilder: The factory O2 was disabled in this airplane - I was using a portable bottle.

To Andy Neill: The SE ceiling was around 13000-13500 for the weight I was at. If I had been heading west, I wouldn't be so certain that I would be typing this right now. And yes, PUB is around 4600'.

Skyking